Politics, Ethics, Culture, and FaithThe issues that separate Americans now go down to the bone –almost as deeply – I believe - as those that precipitated The War of Secession. In my own life I’ve seen relatives distance themselves, and Friendships broken, as a result of anger generated when these matters are confronted directly.

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Philosophy

Reading List: looking, Reading, Just Finished

Dr. Robert T. Morris: Fifty Years a SurgeonA clear window into many important and interesting areas of life in general - as well as medicine - in the mid-19th to early 20th century. Warts and all. Good read. (***)

Christopher Landon: Ice Cold in AlexInteresting and well developed characters, in genuinely tension inducing situations - even when the matter of "who did it" is not really a mystery. Vivid enough for the place and period - WW2 North Africa to early 1950s Britain - to come to life inside your mind. (***)

Karl Von Clausewitz: On WarI read this first many years ago.
The author then impressed me as being more lucid and broadly learned than many contemporary writers on this and similar areas. He still does. (****)

J. B.Schneewind: Sidgwick's Ethics and Victorian Moral PhilosophyVictorian Moral PhilosophyDetails life and analyses work of one of the great figures in 19th century philosophy. Well written, gives good insight into the context of attitudes, assumptions, and circumstances affecting much of the intellectual spirit and life of Britain during those times. (***)

J.G.Ballard: The Drowned WorldAnother (long-time) re-read.
Ballard tends to play one note - but it's a good one - and he plays it VERY well. Some uncontrolled/unforeseen calamity engulfs the world. Protagonist(s) confront general realization of the coldly impersonal nature of the world and how human responses are to a large extent a product of the interaction of those forces with his/there-own biological pre-dispositions - engraved in the structure of each and every one of their cells. And, that the true and only expression of one's authentic self and humanity, lies in how and whether one can/does inwardly accept the truth of these constraints, and expresses that realization, in those (few) opportunities available for actual personal choice.
Intentionally or not his work gives powerful and poetic expression to the Existentialist perspective.
The world of this novel happens to be slowly drowning in the over-heated flood-tides that result from a run-away solar anomaly. But, it could be just about any such occurrence - e.g. A "Wind From Nowhere," or the Japanese invasion of Shanghai (both of which served as the backgrounds of others among his novels). The story-line, character-types, dilemmas, decisions, and general moods are much the same in each story, but the pacing, poetry, intensity, and aggravating authenticity of the characterizations in each instance are gripping enough to make every reading worthwhile. (***)